1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to indoor fireplaces, and particularly to a system of introducing supplemental combustion air.
2. General Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that the typical indoor fireplace in drawing its combustion and dilution air (the latter is needed to prevent smoking) from inside the building housing it is most inefficient. This arises because this air is sucked in around doors and windows, and, in fact, it is essential that the building have such leaks for the fireplace to function properly. These leaks often cool the building about as much as a fire in the fireplace warms it. Thus, ideally, means would be provided to introduce outside air directly into the fireplace, eliminating the objectionable cooling effect. While it might seem that all that one would have to do is to run a pipe from outside the building to any point inside the fireplace to satisfactorily achieve this, in practice, however, such is not the case if the often troublesome exit of smoke from the fireplace into living space is to be avoided. The applicant is unaware of any existing successful fireplace systems which solve this problem. It has heretofore been suggested that a manifold be provided all around the front of a fireplace which would be supplied by forced air from the outside of the building, and thus simulate air entering the fireplace from an adjoining interior of the building. It would appear that by such a construction, sufficiently balanced injection of air might be achieved to prevent smoking. However, the difficulty with this system is that it is necessary to have a manifold across the bottom of the fireplace, which is not at all convenient. Ashes would tend to clog it, and the provision of four housings, one on each side of the fireplace, results in a rather cumbersome structure and would be costly. Ideally, it would be desirable to eliminate one or two of the housings, and yet provide an injection of air in such a manner that smoking will not occur.
It is an object of this invention to reduce the number of air manifolds and to generally provide an improved air injection system.